BrahMos Cruise Missile test fails 'First User Trials'
NEW DELHI: The Indian Army's endeavour to induct the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile as "a precision-strike weapon" took a hit on Tuesday, with the missile failing to achieve laid-down parameters in a test.
This comes at a time when the Pakistan Army is galloping ahead in inducting its nuclear-capable Babur land-attack cruise missile (LACM) - developed with China's help to have a strike range of over 500 km - in large numbers into its arsenal.
Initially, the BrahMos LACM test from the Pokhran field firing range at 10.23am on Tuesday was touted as "successful" by defence ministry officials. But later in the day, this newspaper learnt that it had been quite unsuccessful.
Top defence officials were, however, still reluctant to dub the test, which was witnessed by Army chief General Deepak Kapoor, as "a complete failure".
"BrahMos is a unique missile, which has been tested flawlessly almost 20 times till now. On Tuesday, we were test-firing it with a new guidance scheme...it was not successful. Further trials are required," said an official, reluctant to say anything more.
Sources said it was likely that the BrahMos missile, which flies at a speed of 2.8 Mach, tested on Tuesday had been configured to carry a nuclear warhead rather than a conventional one.
The Army already has missile groups to handle the 150-km Prithvi, 700-800-km Agni-I and 2000-km-plus Agni-II ballistic missiles, which are nuclear-capable.
On its part, Army has ordered two BrahMos regiments in the first phase at a cost of Rs 8,352 crore, with 134 missiles, 10 road-mobile autonomous launchers on 12x12 Tatra vehicles, four mobile command posts and the like, said sources.
The Navy, in turn, has ordered 49 BrahMos firing units at a cost of Rs 711 crore for now. All the tests of the BrahMos naval version, both anti-ship and land-attack ones, have been successful till now.
BrahMos was even fired successfully from a vertical launcher - the earlier tests were from "inclined" launchers - fitted on Rajput-class destroyer INS Ranvir in Bay of Bengal last month.
The "universal vertical launcher" is significant since it imparts the missile system with some stealth as well as the capability to be fired in any direction. It also paves the way for the integration of BrahMos missiles on submarines.
Even as India and Russia begin preliminary work on a "hypersonic" BrahMos-2 missile capable of flying at a speed between 5 and 7 Mach, two Indian Sukhoi-30MKI fighters have also been sent to Russia for integration with BrahMos' air-launched version.
The armed forces' eventual plan, of course, is to have nuclear-tipped LACMs, with strike ranges in excess of 1,500 km. Unlike ballistic missiles, cruise missiles do not leave the atmosphere and are powered and guided throughout their flight path.
Cruise missiles, which can evade enemy radars and air defence systems since they fly at low altitudes, are also much cheaper as well as more accurate and easier to operate.
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New Delhi: Ii is the pride of India’s defence research programme but the BrahMos surface-to-surface cruise missile failed to meet user and operational parameters at its first ever user trial at the Pokharan ranges in Rajasthan on Tuesday.
Sources at the test site told this newspaper that the Indo-Russian missile failed to hit its target after it was fired by the Army on Tuesday morning. The test-firing, first ever to be conducted by the Army after the missile was inducted in June 2007, was witnessed by Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor and other senior officers.
The supersonic cruise missile was test-fired from a mobile launcher at the Pokharan ranges, barely a hundred kilometres away from the Pakistan border. However, Defence Minister A K Antony clarified that the test was pre-planned and not directed towards any country.
While DRDO has been silent on the test-firing, sources said the missile did not meet its ‘operational parameters’ and deviated from the pre-planned course, failing to hit its target. They said the test was a setback but ‘quiet normal’ during the development of any new missile system. More firing trials will be required to identify faults in the system.
Surprisingly, the first user test firing took place almost two years after its induction indicating that the missile was being fine-tuned by the joint Indo-Russian scientific team that is working on the project.
The surface-to-surface missile system has been inducted as a separate artillery unit consisting of four launchers. The Army is looking to acquire close to 80 launchers over the next few years to give a boost to its artillery units. The BrahMos was originally designed as an anti ship missile but DRDO is also working on a smaller air launched version, to be fitted on the IAF’s SU 30 MKI.
While the missile has been developed under a joint venture between India and Russia with both sides funding the research programme, Moscow is yet to place any orders for the missile. India, on the other hand, is also planning to install the missile on its submarines.
The BrahMos Weapon System has already proved successful and inducted in the Indian Navy and Army, after passing through various stages of testing and meeting the user requirements, but yesterday's testing, conducted as part of its Block II upgradation for enhancing its capabilities in land attack configuration, missed its target, it said.
However, the missile tested in the western test range from the Mobile Autonomous Launcher for enhancing the weapon system's capabilities in land attack configuration, functioned ''absolutely normal till the last phase''.
Alongside, it also said that ''the missile missed the target, though it maintained its direction''.
The test was to evaluate the missile's new homing scheme in a multi-target environment to an identified specific target, which called for an advanced algorithm and intelligence embedding.
Meanwhile, in Jaisalmer Defence sources said yesterday's field testing of supersonic cruise missile was not a ''complete success''.
''BrahMos was to hit and explode after hitting the assigned target at Agasar in Nachana region but the missile got struck in the sand after falling close to the target.'' The new guided system did not work appropriately, the source added.